


To be a Thief

by Hails



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Call Down the Hawk, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, One-Sided Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, Opal (a Raven Cycle Story), POV Adam Parrish, POV Joseph Kavinsky, Post-Canon, Thief, dreamthief
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-10-21 12:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20693906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hails/pseuds/Hails
Summary: There was more to being a thief than one might think. It was not simply the act of taking something that was not your own. Nor was it simply swiping an item under your coat, or into your pocket. To be a thief was to be the in-between, to be the something that no one sees, to be the gap in a memory. To be a thief was to be the thing that slipped away. To be a thief was to be the thing stolen.Joseph Kavinsky was a thing stolen.Or: People have a habit of not dying properly in Henrietta and Joesph Kavinsky is no exception.





	1. Smothered

There was more to being a thief than one might think. It was not simply the act of taking something that was not your own. Nor was it simply swiping an item under your coat, or into your pocket. To be a thief was to be the in-between, to be the something that no one sees, to be the gap in a memory. To be a thief was to be the thing that slipped away. To be a thief was to be the thing stolen. 

Joseph Kavinsky was a thing stolen.

Two hundred and thirty-six days ago Joseph Kavinsky died. No, that’s not quite right. Two hundred and thirty-six days ago, Joseph Kavinsky lived. Today, he was not quite alive per-say but also not very dead either. The thing about Joseph Kavinsky was, you had to keep your eye on him, he was never very good at staying in one place. 

Kavinsky laughed a hollow laugh as he scratched a new notch in the tree. The bark grew over it immediately. 

“Dammit Lynch,” Kavinsky growled cutting at the tree again. 

He had been inside of Ronan’s dreams for almost a year now and yet there was little he could manage to control. The forest, not Cabeswater, but also not not Cabeswater, seemed to play by its own rules. 

When Kavinsky had first slipped into Ronan’s dreams Cabeswater had been an unnaturally large pain in the ass. Each night as Ronan arrived in the dreamscape the branches of the forest would shield Kavinsky from Ronan’s gaze. They would block out his calls and swallow him into the night. 

As the days went on Kavinsky began to realize his attempts to get Ronan’s attention were futile. The forest didn’t want him to know he was here. Kavinsky had been furious in the chaos of it all. He longed for someone, anyone, to hear his screams, but Cabeswater ate them whole. 

Dark things lurked in the shadows of the woods, they pecked at his eyes and scratched at his skin, yet they did not let him die. He didn’t think he could die here. He thought he might already be dead. 

But no, that’s not quite right. Joseph Kavinsky was not alive, but he wasn't dead either. 

And although the chaos of the forest drove him mad, it was better than when it disappeared completely. One day, Kavinsky was walking through the decaying and blacking trees when suddenly the world he’d grown to know went black. As if the dream was sleeping too. It was like he’d shut his eyes and forgot how to open them again. 

Kavinsky had never truly known fear before that day. It was a fear that he couldn’t shrug off or dismiss. It was a cold, primal, fear that held you still and told you that you were utterly helpless. 

Maybe it was a day later, or a minute, or a second, or a year, or three years or one hundred, but the world returned. At some point, the metaphoric lights came back on. But things were different. The new world looked like a knock off, a fake, a phoney. It wasn’t Cabeswater anymore. The trees weren't the same brand of asshole. They didn't cluck or swat at Kavinsky. The forest wasn't an endless maze, it was just a forest. And in the midst of this oh so ordinary place, he saw Ronan Lynch standing alone, a grim look of sorrow plastered on the smooth pale lines of his face. 

This was Kavinsky’s chance. He could finally leave this dreamworld hell. He took a step towards Ronan and saw the other boy trying desperately to pick up a stone. To take back Kavinsky realized. But the stone kept falling through Ronan’s fingers as though his grasp wasn't tight enough or the stone wasn't real enough. When Ronan left the dream, the stone crumbled into dust, staying nothing in reality and turning to ash in the dream. 

Something was wrong. Cabeswater was gone and Ronan’s ability to take things from dreams was weakened. Kavinsky was a very complicated dream thing. A dream thing that he did not want any part of to turn to ash. 

So he waited. And waited. 

The thing about Ronan Lynch was, he never looked up, he was always so fixated on the things right in front of him. So Kavinsky hid in the tree branches. He used to curse them for shielding him from Ronan, now he welcomed it. He would stay out of sight in the treetops and still be able to watch Ronan as he dreamt up this new world. 

And dear lord Lynch was slow. His creations were made with no urgency. Every new goddamn piece was meticulously constructed, the process sometimes spanning over multiple dreams.

It was as if Ronan wasn’t even trying to pull things out of his mind anymore. And if he wasn't going to practice, he wouldn’t get any better, and if he didn't get any better, Kavinsky was stuck here. He considered the perks of being ash. 

“It would be a hell of a way to go,” Kavinsky had called to the trees and creatures who dwelled within them. He had taken to talking to the woods while Ronan was awake. Perhaps out of madness, but he had always been quite mad. Rather it was out of boredom. 

Kavinsky wouldn't call himself lonely exactly. It was more about the lack of reaction. Everything he did here was so pointless. No one saw him do it, no one cared. There was no one to stare at his eccentric flare or chastise his recklessness. The worst of it all was seeing the one person whose reaction he craved most every night but having to remain silent. 

Once, and only once, Kavinsky had called out to Ronan from his perch up in the tree. 

“How many fucking Lynch’s does it take to build a forest,” he had said, before ducking behind a branch. 

Even from behind the leaves Kavinsky saw Ronan’s eyes go wide, furiously searching for the sound. The rush from that look flooded through Kavinsky’s veins and coiled in his stomach. He came in his hand that night, Lynch’s wide eyes a vivid picture behind his closed ones. 

Things began to progress. The forest got thicker, as more and more was added on each night. An entire patch of the woods became filled up with clouds that dropped endless, relentless rain. The pouring rain made Kavinsky feel odd as he stood beneath it. As though it was supposed to be happiness, but it didn’t quite fit with his definition of the word.

The trees were taller, and Kavinsky was comfortable sitting within the branches. Ronan had gotten better at pulling things from dreams. He took lightbulbs and car parts from this world easily, but still, Kavinsky waited. 

Kavinsky had once taken a person from his own dreams. Prokopenko. He remembered the gruelling process. He remembered smothering the brain dead ones with a pillow, until one day he finally got a functional end product. Yet, Prokopenko was far from perfect, far from what Kavinsky had wanted. The boy’s shoulders were crooked, one higher than the other, and his ears jutted out too far making him look like a monkey. But Prokopenko wasn't a monkey, he was a dog. A dog, loyal only to his maker. Kavinsky didn't want to be brought back like Prokopenko. He didn't want to be crooked and he didn’t want to be a dog. So he waited a little longer, let Ronan practice just a bit more. 

For a few weeks, however, Ronan stopped taking things from his dreams altogether. He would simply pop into the dream world, sullenly wander around, and then vanish without taking so much as a stick. 

Kavinsky wanted to scream at him. Tell Ronan how close he was to being ready to free him. But talking to Lynch was out of the question. And soon enough, but really not soon enough, Ronan began plucking things from his dreams once more. 

It had been a few weeks since Ronan had begun again, and Kavinsky knew he was almost ready. 

One more day. He thought to himself, using a jagged rock to mark another bloody line on his arm. The trees didn't allow him to mark them, although he tried it every day, tried to influence the dream world, to make the landscape his own. But the world revolted his attempts. This was Lynch’s dream, not Kavinsky’s. Kavinsky had decided he needed to keep track of time somehow; and now two hundred and thirty-six scratches marked up his left arm, a tally to remind him that this was not his world. He could be marked, modified which made him both more and less real than the trees surrounding him. 

One more day and Kavinsky would be free of this place. Free to dream and steal again. Free to torment Ronan Lynch openly. Free to do a lot of things to Ronan Lynch. 

School will be done when I get back. He thought as he began to drift off. The world will have changed. Kavinsky smiled and hoped for anarchy.


	2. Look up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.

_ BOOM! _

Kavinsky woke with a start, almost falling from his high perch in the tree. His body felt electric like he had worn wool socks on carpeted floors. He looked down at his hands noticing that they were shaking, rising up in the tree he looked around, seeing if he could spot what had made the sound. Taking a moment to consider, it hadn’t really been a sound at all, but a _ feeling _. A feeling of transition, of change. Kavinsky took a moment to do what Lynch was always forgetting, and therefore always forgetting to dream into existence, he looked up. Overhead the night sky was vibrant. Thousands of stars were visibly scattered above, rivalled only by the glowing moon. 

_Kavinsky was back. _

_ Back? _ He thought. _ But how? _He hadn't approached Ronan, he had been waiting one more night. 

Kavinsky looked down at the tree he was in, and then up at the forest surrounding him. He could hear the faint sound of rain in the distance.

It made sense now. Ronan had taken the entire forest from his dreams. An impressive feat Kavinsky had to admit. The only problem was while pulling the forest from the dream, Ronan had by default taken whatever was inside of it as well. 

Kavinsky started to laugh. He sat there laughing long enough for his breath to become raspy and his head to feel light. 

Half climbing, half falling from the tree, he took in deep breaths, the air felt better here. Like he wasn't really taking in oxygen before, and in a way, he hadn’t been. Kavinsky searched the ground, picking up a large stick. He held it firmly before hitting it against the tree in front of him. Bark flew off the tree, the outer layer shattered with each hit. Kavinsky didn't stop until a sizeable chunk of bark was bashed in. Then he used his hands to begin pulling, ripping the wood apart. He dug in using his nails until they bled, stopping only when the chance of the bark growing back became slim to none. The trees could be marked. The dreamthings were just that here. Dreams. Kavinsky was real, and he was about to make that known. 

Yet, leaving the woods was no easy task. It was a labyrinth of trees and hills with no true end in sight. But Kavinsky didn't mind the walk. He knew these trees, and he knew there was an end, something he was unable to imagine for a long time now. 

After a few hours of walking, the sun kissed the horizon and Kavinsky spotted a roof in the distance. It was the roof of a barn that looked eerily familiar for reasons Kavinsky couldn’t quite pin until he reached the end of the forest and saw the full property. 

This was the Lynch family home. In the distance, he spotted a muscular figure with a shaved head shovelling dirt into a wheelbarrow. Kavinsky’s grin cracked his face in two. 

Ronan was facing away from him and when Kavinsky tried calling out he noticed a big pair of headphones covering Ronan’s ears. 

Kavinsky jogged down the path coming to stand a few feet behind Ronan. Without a second thought he reached a hand out to tap Ronan on the back but stopped, noticing a garden hose laying on the ground a few feet away. Without thinking, without hesitating, Kavinsky grabbed the hose, turned on the water, and put his thumb over the nozzle. Streams of water violently sprayed in every direction, but most of it hit its mark. 

“_Opal! _” Ronan growled before spinning around. 

Kavinsky was buzzing. His longing for this moment overwhelming now that it was here. “What, forget my name already Lynch?” 

Ronan’s face became impossibly pale as he scanned Kavinsky, his eyes searching and frantic. Kavinsky knew he was puzzling if this was a dream or not. He saw the exact moment Ronan decided that this was reality. And he saw the next moment in a flash as Ronan raised his shovel and hit Kavinsky across the face. 


	3. Eye to Eye

When Kavinsky came to he was tied to a chair in the middle of an empty kitchen with mismatched floor tiles and an odd array of appliances. His jaw felt like he had been chewing rocks.

_ Lynch could eat shit _.

“Lynch,” Kavinsky called his voice venomous and gravelly, “this is not the warm welcome I was hoping for.” 

He heard footsteps coming from down the hall and Ronan appeared in the doorway, looking as though he'd seen a ghost. He was still holding the shovel. 

Kavinsky clucked his tongue. “Listen, man, I’m into the kinky ropes and shit but I’m gonna have to draw a line at getting beat with gardening equipment.” 

Ronan put a hand to his face, closing his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose. “_ Fuck _ .” He inhaled and exhaled slowly, “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck _.” 

“Now I know you’re having a lot of overwhelming feelings. But close to a year without seeing your old pal Kavinsky and all you can do is cuss into your hand? Didn’t mama Lynch teach you any manners?” 

“Shut up.” Ronan snapped not looking at him. 

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Kavinsky asked, voice growing dark. “I just spent 7 and a half goddamn months trapped in your demented head and—” he was cut off by Ronan’s cell phone ringing. The ringtone was awful and had something to do with squashes. Ronan turned but didn't bother to walk out of earshot. 

“Hey…Yeah, he’s still tied up but awake now. Are you almost here?” Ronan said into the receiver. 

Kavinsky couldn’t hear the person on the other end but assumed it was Gansey. He couldn't imagine Ronan calling anyone else for help in a situation such as this.

“No, Opal’s not here. I got Maura to pick her up, but I didn’t tell her why. ” 

Kavinsky briefly wondered who this ‘Opal’ was but decided he didn’t really care. What he did care about, however, was the fact that his reappearance was not going as he'd imagined it. He hadn’t expected Ronan to throw him a party but also hadn't been prepared to be physically detained. 

“Okay see you soon,” Ronan said before hanging up the phone. 

“I take it Dick is going to be gracing us with his presence. Maybe when he gets here you’ll take your head out of your ass and untie me.” 

Ronan didn’t respond, he just looked at a space past Kavinsky’s head. 

“I’m pretty sure kidnapping is a felony Lynch. I know I’ve been gone for a bit but I can’t imagine you’ve sunk _ that _ low.”

Ronan met Kavinsky’s eye, “You can't kidnap someone you make up.” 

A missing piece in Kavinsky’s mind clicked into place. _ Lynch thinks he dreamt me. He doesn’t know I’m the real deal. _Really, it made sense, in a way Kavinsky had come from Ronan’s mind. But the difference was he hadn’t originated there. 

“You think your sporadic cluster-fuck dreams could replicate me this well? Look at my face, it’s flawless—well,” Kavinsky paused, “at least it was before you bashed it in with a goddamn shovel.” 

Ronan’s eyes narrowed.

Kavinsky continued. “Seriously sweetheart, you’re good, but you’re not _ this _ good. Trust me when I say I’m the one and only.” 

Ronan studied his face for an agonizingly long silent moment before finally saying, “The real Kavinsky died almost a year ago.”

“Ahh, so you thought.” Kavinsky sat back in the chair, feigning comfort. 

Ronan’s apathetic expression flickered for just a moment. Kavinsky smiled. 

“The nice thing about those little pills we used to take is they’d get you asleep in under two seconds flat if you take the right dose.”

Ronan was staring straight at Kavinsky now, back rigid. His jaw tense. _ He’s starting to understand. _

“Now, my body, my _old_ body, that’s long gone, dead to me and the world. But, my, I don't know what the fuck to call it. My soul? My consciousness? Whatever it is popped into a dream last minute. I saw that dragon coming in fast so I disappeared faster.” 

Ronan wasn't breathing, “What are you saying?” 

“Christ Lynch, aren’t you listening,” Kavinsky leaned as far forward in his chair as his bindings allowed. “I may have come from your dream but that’s only because I’ve been living there for the last two hundred and fuck all days.” 

He met Ronan’s eyes and saw fear. The look on his face made Kavinsky's breath heavy. 

Before Ronan could say anything, he was distracted by the sound of the front door opening. 

“Don’t move,” Ronan muttered leaving the room. 

“Now that’s just cruel,” Kavinsky yelled back, looking down at the ropes encircling his biceps. 

Kavinsky’s mind flicked to Richard Gansey. He hadn’t seen the teenaged presidential candidate in a long time. He briefly wondered if the bastard had to trek back from whatever college he was attending to be here. Classes must have started by now. 

Kavinsky took another moment to study his surroundings. He had never been to the barns before, Ronan had only once mentioned them to Kavinsky when he recounted where he’d dumped the body of his first night terror. The house looked lived in, but well-loved, a perfect mirror to Kavinsky’s family home which consisted of lavish but unnecessary trinkets and gadgets; all of which, wouldn't be missed if the house went up in flames. Kavinsky wondered if his house _had_ gone up in flames since he was gone. His mother certainly wouldn't notice. 

Moments later Kavinsky heard hushed voices making their way down the hall. “Dick,” he called, “glad you could finally make it. Hopefully, you can talk some sense into our mutual friend.” 

Ronan stepped back into the room from the hallway, but who followed him was most definitely not Richard Gansey. 

“_ Parrish,” _ Kavinsky felt his features falter before quickly adjusting his expression. This wasn’t the last person he had expected to see here, but it certainly wasn't the first. 

Adam’s shoulders were set and he regarded Kavinsky coldly. If Kavinsky was being honest, which he always tried not to be, he had never really paid Parrish much mind. He knew he was part of Ronan’s little gang, but had always assumed it was because he followed Gansey around everywhere like a lost pet and not because he and Ronan were actually friends. He couldn't picture it, the straight-A scholarship kid hanging out with the venomous millionaire dropout. 

Kavinsky turned to Ronan ignoring the room’s newest addition, “Was Gansey-boy too busy being elected Frat leader?” 

Ronan turned to Adam, “I told you, he’s too accurate to be something I made up.”

Adam hadn't taken his eyes off Kavinsky. 

“What?” Kavinsky smirked. “See something you like?” 

Adams' mouth was a thin line, “Quite the opposite actually.” 

It wasn’t rational, but Adam’s insult stung more than it should. As if Kavinsky was worthless to him and he wanted to let him know it.

Kavinsky didn't let Adam see this flit of anger, instead, he responded coolly, “That’s okay trailer trash, I didn’t expect you to have good taste.” 

Adam remained unaffected by the comment, gaze staying steady and fixed, but Kavinsky was startled to realize that Ronan's hands had curled into fists. 

“I think you’re right,” Adam said turning to face Ronan. “You couldn’t have made this—made him.”

“So he’s real?” Ronan asked.

“I think he wasn't real for a long time but somehow found his way back into being.” Adam fidgeted with one of the strings on his hoodie. “Think about Gansey, when he died he was able to come back because you traded Cabeswater for him.” 

So Dick is the reason the big old magical forest vanished, Kavinsky thought. Made sense. Sense in the way that none of it _ really _ made sense.

“But I _ wanted _ to do that,” Ronan argued. “I asked Cabeswater for help.” 

“You asked it for help and it helped. But the form of that help wasn't really what you had expected,” Adam continued. “Now I’m not exactly sure what Kavinsky is, or can do. You said he’s not quite a dreamer but can still pull things from dreams.” 

Adam’s question was meant for Ronan but he stared straight at Kavinsky. 

“I’m a thief,” Kavinsky said. “So when things went sideways I stole myself into your dream.” 

Ronan frowned, “Wouldn’t that just make you a stowaway?”

Kavinsky barked a flat laugh, “No Lynch, your dreams aren't a ship and they're definitely harder to slip into.”

“So how the hell did you get back out then?” 

Adam’s eyes were trained on Kavinsky clearly curious about the answer. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Kavinsky said provokingly. “Untie me and maybe we can have a nice little chat about it.” 

“Fuck no,” Ronan replied instantly.

Adam stayed quiet for a moment before asking, “If we did untie you where would you go?” 

“Your mom’s house,” Kavinsky said wishing Adam would take himself and his questions on a hike. He didn’t like the way he was looking at him. Straight in the eye. Adam used to avoid his stare at all costs, yet something about this Adam Parrish was different. Unnervingly so. This Adam Parrish thought he was worth something.

“Why are you making this difficult?” Adam asked “There’s nothing in it for you. If you lie, nothing changes. If you refuse to talk, nothing changes. If you tell us the truth, we might let you go.” 

“Like hell we are.” Ronan spat.

“What do you propose then Ronan? We keep him here tied up? I’m guessing that would get old pretty quick.” 

Ronan glared at Adam but said nothing.

“You want to know where I’d go if you untied me?” Kavinsky said. Lynch may not want him to be free, but trailer boy might be convinced. Parrish’s mind had always seemed to be a place of logic and reason-- two things the core of Kavinsky’s being violently rejected. “I think I’d go see if I could dig up Prokopenko, poor guy is probably thrashing around in there.” Kavinsky smiled, watching Ronan’s body stiffen. He had brought more than Kavinsky back to life and was only now realizing it.

“I think we should call Gansey,” Ronan said lowly to Adam, who still looked calm if not a little pale. 

“We can’t, he, Henry and Blue are on a 4-day sailing excursion remember? No cell reception.” 

“Shit,” Ronan mumbled. 

“I think,” Adam said slowly, as he walked to the hallway, “I need a minute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else is pumped for Call Down the Hawk tomorrow??

**Author's Note:**

> This took me a little while to get out into the world and was honestly inspired by me just really wanting to read about what would happen if Kavinsky had slipped away unnoticed. This is only chapter one and there is definitely more to come so I hope you enjoy.


End file.
